Passion play on words

My friend has a theory that what you wanted to do as a child is what you should eventually end up doing. For all those little boys who wanted to play professional baseball, I’m afraid her theory may not prove correct. For me, however, she couldn’t have been more right.

It struck me today as I walked across campus at UNC Chapel Hill, on my way to conduct person-on-the-street interviews, that I wanted to do this when I grew up. As a child I shoved my tape recorder in my relatives’ faces, asking “What would you do if you won a million dollars?” Of course, this time I asked about the upcoming election, and my interviewing skills have improved, but the idea remains the same.

I feel lucky. At 24, I have already found a career that makes me feel constantly refilled, rather than parceled out. Every day I learn something new as a journalist and I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning. Especially now, as a master’s student at the University of North Carolina, I feel like I’m constantly discovering things about the profession and my place in it.

I returned to school this fall because I felt like I had reached a turning point at my job. I had gained a great breadth of experience, but not a lot of depth. I also felt as though I had gotten a wealth of on-the-job experience, but I had little formal training as a journalist.

As a reporter for The Voice Ledger, I photographed NY Sen. Hilary Clinton speaking at an apple orchard in upstate New York. I wrote each week for the Taconic Press arts and entertainment supplement Taconic Weekend, and I interviewed such notable personalities as environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., illustrator James Gurney and reggae royalty Ziggy Marley.

As a writer for Weekend I reviewed local theater and preview performances, art shows and events. I have a passion for the arts, so I relish every chance to speak with artists, dancers, actors and musicians each week. In March I became the assistant editor of specialty publications, which includes Weekend and the bimonthly special interest magazine Dutchess. The thing I enjoyed most was writing people’s personal stories.

I met a woman whose husband had received the Purple Heart posthumously. He had participated in the Aleutian Island campaign in World War II and had been injured. Years after he died his children unearthed records proving that he had sustained the injury from enemy fire. The woman barely spoke a word of English. She had met her husband when he came to her door in Italy. The woman and the young American G.I. fell in love instantly and married. To me, this anecdote made the story that much richer.

I have written stories non-stop since I learned to read, but, when I entered college as a freshman, I thought I wanted to go to law school. It was not long, though, before I found myself compelled by my natural inclination to write. I soon learned that Gettysburg College offered a rather meager writing program. Rather than transfer, or abandon my goal of becoming a writer, I made my own opportunities.

I became a creative writing minor and took classes such as "Writing the Memoir," "Forms of Fiction Writing," and "Poetry." I received the Marion Zulauf Poetry Prize for one of the poems I wrote. I sought experience to fuel my writing by studying abroad in England, where I took a seminar called "Creativity in Art and Science." In the National Gallery in London, I sat with my notebook, scribbling notes about original Van Gogh paintings. Like the art students who sketched what they saw, I was practicing my craft. I also took notes on the train to Canterbury and the ferry to Dublin, recording the outlandish characters and the picturesque moments.

As a journalist, I continue to tell the stories of people whom I meet for brief blinks of time. I wonder if they read my portrayals, look at my snapshots and think, “That’s not me!” But, I hope, that at least some of the time, I capture them, as in a verbal mirror, and they think, “That’s exactly how I feel.”